The man on horseback riding up the trail to look into the girl"s eyes that summer afternoon!
CHAPTER VII
The two young wives quickly became very intimate. They spent many mornings together "reading," that is, they sat on the cool west veranda of the Lanes"s house, or less often on the balcony at the Falkners"s, with a novel turned down where their attention had relaxed, chatting and sewing.
Isabelle found Bessie Falkner "cunning," "amusing," "odd," and always "charming." She had "an air about her," a picturesque style of gossip that she used when instructing Isabelle in the intricacies of Torso society.
Isabelle also enjoyed the homage that Bessie paid her.
Bessie frankly admired Isabella"s house, her clothes, her stylish self, and enjoyed her larger experience of life,--the Washington winter, Europe, even the St. Louis horizon,--all larger than anything she had ever known.
Isabelle was very nearly the ideal of what she herself would have liked to be. So when they had exhausted Torso and their households, they filled the morning hours with long tales about people they had known,--"Did you ever hear of the Dysarts in St. Louis? Sallie Dysart was a great belle,--she had no end of affairs, and then she married Paul Potter. The Potters were very well-known people in Philadelphia, etc." Thus they gratified their curiosity about _lives_, all the interesting complications into which men and women might get. Often Bessie stayed for luncheon, a dainty affair served on a little table which the maid brought out and set between them.
Sometimes Bessie had with her the baby girl, but oftener not, for she became exacting and interfered with the luncheon.
Bessie had endless tidbits of observation about Torsonians. "Mrs. Freke was a cashier in a Cleveland restaurant when he married her. Don"t you see the bang in her hair still? ... Mrs. Griscom came from Kentucky,--very old family. Tom Griscom, their only son, went to Harvard,--he was very wild.
He"s disappeared since.... Yes, Mrs. Adams is common, but the men seem to like her. I don"t trust her green eyes. Mr. Darnell, they say, is always there. Oh, Mr. Adams isn"t the one to care!"
Often they came back to Darnell,--that impetuous, black-haired young lawyer with his deep-set, fiery eyes, who had run away with his wife.
"She looks scared most of the time, don"t you think? They say he drinks.
Too bad, isn"t it? Such a brilliant man, and with the best chances. He ran for Congress two years ago on the Democratic ticket, and just failed. He is going to try again this next fall, but his railroad connection is against him.... Oh, Sue Darnell,--she is n.o.body; she can"t hold him--that"s plain."
"What does she think of Mrs. Adams?"
Bessie shrugged her shoulders significantly.
"Sue has to have her out at their farm. Well, they say she was pretty gay herself,--engaged to three men at once,--one of them turned up in Torso last year. Tom was very polite to him, elaborately polite; but he left town very soon, and she seemed dazed.... I guess she has reason to be afraid of her husband. He looks sometimes--well, I shouldn"t like to have Rob look at me that way, not for half a second!"
The two women clothed the brilliant Kentuckian with all the romance of unbridled pa.s.sion. "He sends to Alabama every week for the jasmine Mrs.
Adams wears--fancy!"
"Really! Oh, men! men!"
"It"s probably _her_ fault--she can"t hold him."
That was the simple philosophy which they evolved about marriage,--men were uncertain creatures, only partly tamed, and it was the woman"s business to "hold" them. So much the worse for the women if they happened to be tied to men they could not "hold." Isabelle, remembering on one occasion the flashing eyes of the Kentuckian, his pa.s.sionate denunciation of mere commercialism in public life, felt that there might be some defence for poor Tom Darnell,--even in his flirtation with the "common" Mrs. Adams.
Then the two friends went deeper and talked husbands, both admiring, both hilariously amused at the masculine absurdities of their mates.
"I hate to see poor Rob so hara.s.sed with bills," Bessie confided. "It is hard for him, with his tastes, poor boy. But I don"t know what I can do about it. When he complains, I tell him we eat everything we have, and I am sure I never get a dress!"
Isabelle, recollecting the delicious suppers she had had at the Falkners"s, thought that less might be eaten. In her mother"s house there had always been comfort, but strict economy, even after the hardware business paid enormous profits. This thrift was in her blood. Bessie had said to Rob that Isabelle was "close." But Isabelle only laughed at Bessie when she was in these moods of dejection, usually at the first of the month. Bessie was so amusing about her troubles that she could not take her seriously.
"Never mind, Bessie!" she laughed. "He probably likes to work hard for you,--every man does for the woman he loves."
And then they would have luncheon, specially devised for Bessie"s epicurean taste. For Bessie Falkner did devout homage to a properly cooked dish.
Isabelle, watching the contented look with which the little woman swallowed a bit of jellied meat, felt that any man worth his salt would like to gratify her innocent tastes. Probably Falkner couldn"t endure a less charming woman for his wife. So she condoned, as one does with a clever child, all the little manifestations of waywardness and selfishness that she was too intelligent not to see in her new friend. Isabelle liked to spoil Bessie Falkner. Everybody liked to indulge her, just as one likes to feed a pretty child with cake and candy, especially when the discomforts of the resulting indigestion fall on some one else.
"Oh, it will all come out right in the end!" Bessie usually exclaimed, after she had well lunched. She did not see things very vividly far ahead,--nothing beyond the pleasant luncheon, the attractive house, her adorable Isabelle. "I always tell Rob when he is blue that his chance will come some day; he"ll make a lucky strike, do some work that attracts public attention, and then we"ll all be as happy as can be."
She had the gambler"s instinct; her whole life had been a gamble, now winning, now losing, even to that moment when her lover had ridden up to the hotel and solved her doubts about the rich suitor. In Colorado she had known men whose fortunes came over night, "millions and millions," as she told Isabelle, rolling the words in her little mouth toothsomely. Why not to her? She felt that any day fortune might smile.
"My husband says that Mr. Falkner is doing excellent work,--Mr. Freke said so," Isabelle told Bessie.
"And Rob talks as if he were going to lose his job next week! Sometimes I wish he would lose it--and we could go away to a large city."
Bessie thus echoed the feeling in Isabelle"s own heart,--"I don"t want to spend my life on an Indiana prairie!" To both of the women Torso was less a home, a corner of the earth into which to put down roots, than a way-station in the drama and mystery of life. Confident in their husbands"
ability to achieve Success, they dreamed of other scenes, of a larger future, with that restlessness of a new civilization, which has latterly seized even women--the supposedly stable s.e.x.
As the year wore on there were broader social levels into which Isabelle in company with Bessie dipped from time to time. The Woman"s Club had a lecture course in art and sociology. They attended one of the lectures in the Normal School building, and laughed furtively in their m.u.f.fs at "Madam President" of the Club,--a portly, silk-dressed dame,--and at the ill-fitting black coat of the university professor who lectured. They came away before the reception.
"Dowds!" Bessie summed up succinctly.
"Rather crude," Isabelle agreed tolerantly.
During the winter Isabelle did some desultory visiting among the Hungarians employed at the c.o.ke-ovens, for Bessie"s church society. Originally of Presbyterian faith, she had changed at St. Mary"s to the Episcopal church, and latterly all church affiliations had grown faint. The Colonel maintained a pew in the first Presbyterian Church, but usually went to hear the excellent lectures of a Unitarian preacher. Isabelle"s religious views were vague, broad, liberal, and unvital. Bessie"s were simpler, but scarcely more effective. Lane took a lively interest in the railroad Y.M.C.A., which he believed to be helpful for young men. He himself had been a member in St. Louis and had used the gymnasium. Isabelle got up an entertainment for the Hungarian children, which was ended by a disastrous thunderstorm. She had an uneasy feeling that she "ought to do something for somebody." Alice Johnston, she knew, had lived at a settlement for a couple of years. But there were no settlements in Torso, and the acutely poor were looked after by the various churches. Just what there was to be done for others was not clear. When she expressed her desire "not to live selfishly"
to her husband, he replied easily:--
"There are societies for those things, I suppose. It ought to be natural, what we do for others."
Just what was meant by "natural" was not clear to Isabelle, but the word accorded with the general belief of her cla.s.s that the best way to help in the world was to help one"s self, to become useful to others by becoming important in the community,--a comfortable philosophy. But there was one definite thing that they might accomplish, and that was to help the Falkners into easier circ.u.mstances.
"Don"t you suppose we could do something for them? Now that the baby has come they are dreadfully poor,--can"t think of going away for the summer, and poor Bessie needs it and the children. I meant to ask the Colonel when he was here last Christmas. Isn"t there something Rob could do in the road?"
Lane shook his head.
"That is not my department. There might be a place in St. Louis when they begin work on the new terminals. I"ll speak to Brundage the next time he"s here."
"St. Louis--Bessie would like that. She"s such a dear, and would enjoy pretty things so much! It seems as if she almost had a right to them."
"Why did she marry a poor man, then?" Lane demanded with masculine logic.
"Because she loved him, silly! She isn"t mercenary."
"Well, then,--" but Lane did not finish his sentence, kissing his wife instead. "She"s rather extravagant, isn"t she?" he asked after a time.
"Oh, she"ll learn to manage."
"I will do what I can for him, of course."
And Isabelle considered the Falkners" fate settled; John, like her father, always brought about what he wanted.
They spent the Christmas holidays that year with her parents. Lane was called to New York on railroad business, and Isabelle had a breathless ten days with old friends, dining and lunching, listening to threads of gossip that had been broken by her exile to Torso. She discovered an unexpected avidity for diversion, and felt almost ashamed to enjoy people so keenly, to miss her husband so little. She put it all down to the cramping effect of Torso. So when the Colonel asked her how she liked her new home, she burst forth, feeling that her opportunity had come:--